Live Well, Laugh Often and Love Much ... But best of all eat
well, for what you eat today walks and talks tomorrow …
December 2008 ~ February 2009
Volume 1, Issue 6
Closing the Old Year and opening to the New Year ...
Celebrating our new name … Sunsets West Co-op
A name change is a complex business. It takes so many things with it when it goes down and all the new registrations take on a
new work load.
We have retained our original email address and our web site name just to keep some things normal as we move through this
time of change.
We are working with the North West Co-op Development Center to establish our marketing message to our combined
communities.
We are watching our internal growth as it marches forward. We are celebrating the growth of the Buyer’s Club and its health
and wealth benefits to our patrons.
We are enjoying the benefits of our commission work and its rapid and successful growth.
We are still researching and notating the details that we have called for in the acquisition of the old grocery store building.
We are interviewing in regard to the movement across the road and into the Al’s Mini Mart site for the food section of our store.
We are enjoying the company and reliability of our workers who share their time to complete the consignment each week. Thank
you all.
We are celebrating 25 members of the Co-op and we are not really trying yet!
We are celebrating 19 memberships, some traded and some financed.
We are appreciative of the input of folk who care about our quality of life here.
We thank you all for the friendship and support that you have given to us all this year. It has been both exciting and VERY
rewarding to work with you all and to learn so much more about the place we live and love.
We are excited to see change coming to our area; the cleaning up process is both noticeable and good for all of us.
We are mostly appreciative for the down town clean up that we are part of and look forward to more signage and color in the
down town area.
Thank you Sasha for your good works and the connections to future landscaping and paint jobs on Hwy frontages.
Folk that come in to talk to us, locals, tourists and visitors to our town have comments like, ‘I don’t exactly know what is different
but it feels better.’
Working together for the greater good is to be commended.
We are having fun and hope you are too. Jane
Inside this issue:
Celebrating our new name …
Business of the Year
Sundara Yarn ..
North West Co-op Development
Center ..
Secure in a Challenging Economy ..
Our Present Position
Our future in the old grocery store
Buyer’s Club Azure Standard
Snow .. Snow .. Snow
Business of the Year 2008
Business of the Year.
A big surprise came to us at the Co-op when the Clallam Bay/ Sekiu Chamber of Commerce voted us the
We have the trophy to show for it available for viewing at the Co-op. Thank you to all of you who took the initiative to notice
what we are doing here. It means a lot to the Board and the Volunteer Management.
The Grant Writer is working on through the holiday break to further our case in the big picture. We are still working toward the
old grocery store. It is a big project and we look forward to your support as we get it up and running.
It will take a while as there are a lot of things to consider as we march the process forward. We will be looking at an Asian to
go, as well as the services you have wanted in the past in order to fulfill our independence out here in
times of being cut off from the world around us.
Help us by thinking local and checking in on us regularly to see what we are up to.
Sundara Yarn
Thank you to Sundara Inc. for supporting the growth of our business whilst maintaining their own.
We have been working together now for 13 months and have established a system of co-operation that is working well for us
both.
Our reskeiners are loyal and fun- loving.
They have learned the way of the yarn and how it is affected by temperament. If they are happy then the job goes along really
well.
They have learned to break through old patterns in themselves so as to make way for new skills and levels of patience they never
thought they had.
They have realised that they are welcome to develop their skills in order to teach others, and take on new levels of craft
knowledge. They are now involved in the labeling and packaging process as well as the reskeining. The job is rewarding and
satisfying.
We are enthusiastically entering our second year, and the numbers that we were promised in the beginning are here now.
We do a regular 500 skeins a week. We have self employment for seven people and enough work to pay the Co-op rent ,the
PUD, the phone and garbage. We all love the support of the Reskeining.
Sundara has made changes to her business and is now offering clubs for people to sign up for. This has taken aways the stress on
the ordering that her business was incurring in the early days and has increased the numbers of yarn to be dyed and supplied.
We still travel every Wednesday to town to pick up our new consignments. You will know our car on the return trip, it is the
heavily laden one.
The yarn tells the story of color and movement. Folk come to see the wheels going round,
They say it cheers them.
Northwest Co-op Development Center
We have been working with Andrew McLeod from the North west Co-op Development Center in Olympia. Andrew has
travelled to our communities to see for himself the area and the challenges we have in organising our unique style of a Co-op in
this area of many small communities.
He was due to return on the 6th January to continue our marketing plan. But due to the severity of the cut backs has left the Job
in which he was to serve us. We wish him well and hope that this time will be a good one to refresh his pathway and shed new
light for him.
We are now working with Diane Gasaway the Executive Director of the organisation and will continue on our path of technical
assistance, including our Co-op status, as Sunsets West Co-op. Dana is working along with them on the next leg of our story
which will be ready for the Board and members perusal in the first week in January or when the road is reinstated to Neah Bay
after the rock slide that closed it this week.
Andrew directed us toward the Village Soup web site for advertising small communities and groupings of small communities.
Suggesting that we develop a flavour of our own.
“Our stock and confidence as a Co-op is increasing every day. Watch us grow.”
Secure in a Changing Economy
The future of our Co-op is strong. We are in a good position to move forward with confidence in the times of an uncertain
economy.
It has been shown to us that the idea of a community based business is what will be encouraged to bring the country forward at
this time of a changing economic climate.
The idea of growing food locally is still our main goal and we encourage anyone who has the land and the skill to do just that.
We wish to represent as many ways of local production as we can encourage.
Let’s do it for ourselves, the tourists will flow along with us when they are here, we do not need to cater for them especially .
We have a skilled and capable population out here and lots of land and resource to play with.
Let’s do what we can to encourage the growth of the future in our own way. When the weather closes us down, let’s be safe and
happy with our own support. We are a group of strong people and we are fiercely independent, let’s use our own strengths. Put
them together and we have a group of communities working together.
We have a secure positon when we work together for the greater good.
Our Present Position
We have a stable Board of strong business minded, fair and sensible people.
We have regular meetings and clear communications.
We have happy Volunteer Managers who are putting the profits back into the business and the
community to appreciate the growth of our local economy. We have self employed people working
together for the future of local employment opportunities in our own towns.
We have a co-operative business opportunity to support our back ground costs and stability.
We have a wonderful old vehicle which ‘runs on the smell of an oil rag’ and gets us regular fresh goods to share.
We have no debts, no credit, no debtors and money in the bank, along with the beginnings of an investment account.
We are in a good positon and will aim at keeping this stable approach to the development of our Co-op for our combined
communities of Neah Bay, Sekiu, Hoko-Ozette, Clallam Bay, Pysht, Beaver, Forks and beyond. We hope very soon to be able to
offer open membership of the Co-op which many people have asked for and we are very keen to offer them.
We currently have 25 members and 19 memberships. These people have invested time or talent to show faith in the beginnings
of a new and exciting venture for our area.
We have a web site, with information available to all.
We have liaison with the Main street program that is being led by our Town Planner.
We have many choices for people in their shopping experience, and will bring anything back from town by prior arrangement.
Our present positon is a good position.
Our Future in the Old Grocery Store
Our people are working together to move us forward into the old grocery store. It presently
needs a lot of change. The half of the roof that was not damaged now needs to be repalced. The
half that was replaced needs more work as it now leaks. The interior lining of the building needs
to be removed through water damage. The old electricity must be totally removed because of
water damage. The county has been out and recommended safe and appropriate changes, and
the architect is currently working on it.
We are looking for grants to sustain the purchase or lease-to-purchase of the building.
We are on to it.
We are moving toward an entirely alternate power source and have negotiated with the PUD in PA to establish grants and actions
to secure this. We will be forerunners in the supplemental supply of extra needed power to this area. This will be a big project
and all the help we can get will be appreciated.
Both in skills and know-how. Sharing with a group is only as difficult as offering to cooperate and you will be appreciated for your
willingness.
We now have all of the paperwork that we have been waiting for.
What we are keenly interested in is the intention of our communities to use the facility when we get it up and running, and would
love for you to include it in your agenda for the future.
Buyer’s Club ~ AZURE STANDARD
We are having success with our Buyer’s Club.
People are reporting health and economic success through the change of diet to their healthier food
choices.
They are buying quantities of good food at the same cost or less than regular goods.
The dates for orders to be in for the 2009 schedule are:
Closes Thursdays
Jan 01
Jan 29
Feb 26
Mar 26
Apr 30
May 28
Jun 25
July 30
Aug 30
Sep 24
Oct 29
Nov 26
Delivery Thursday;
Jan 08
Feb 05
Mar 05
Apr 02
May 07
Jun 04
July 02
Aug 06
Sep 03
Oct 01
Nov 05
Dec 03
Catalogs are available on–line or at the Co-op for 55c ea.
There is a regular sale catalog each month, also available on-line or at the Co-op.
We can now get the United Buyer's Club for you as well, it is a weekly club.
We pick these orders up on Wednesdays, so get it to us by Friday the week before pick up day.
Good food at good prices.
16732 Hwy 112
Clallam Bay
WA
98326—0204
Phone: 360 963 2189
Fax:360 963 2189
Email:westendcooperative@yahoo.com
Web: www.westendcoop.weebly.com
This is your Co-op so pop in often to see what is new …. others do.
What is a Co-op
A Co-op is a member (worker and customer) owned retail business that provides high quality grocery and
retail items at the lowest prices to their customers.
Co-operatives strive to enrich their communities through consumer education, volunteer discount
programs, member ownership, and the creation of livable wage jobs. Co-operatives integrate their
communities by selling locally grown and produced goods from small family farms and businesses as much as
possible.
The Cooperative Identity:
Definition: A co-operative is an autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common
economic, social , and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly owned and democratically
controlled enterprise.
Values: Co-operatives are based on the values of self-help, self-responsibility, democracy, equality, and
solidarity. In the tradition of their founders, co-operative members are best to believe in the ethical
values of honesty, openness, social responsibility and caring for and about others.
So — Happy People for a Happy Venture … Working together for the greater good of their own combined
communities.
YOU DO NOT HAVE TO BE A MEMBER OF THE CO-OP IN ORDER TO PURCHASE FROM THE STORE.
SSO
OC
CIIA
ALL N
NEEW
WSS
Snow! Snow! Snow!
As I write this the social activities on the far northwest peninsula are halted.
Folk are trudging along in warm clothes across the snow and on through selected deep ditches to access that which they can
simply carry in their hands, whilst balancing on slick ice underfoot.
The snow drifts are deep and slide gently down under their weight allowing those that lose their grip to reach ground zero
before they can as much as shout for joy!
We are watching as they move around as pedestrians .. as the vehicular traffic is halted, and only the snow plough moves right on
ahead.
It is truly a white experience that is being enjoyed and observed with respect.
The depth of the snow is a wonderful surprise as the next step may take you deeper than the one before.
We are glad to be open right through the ice and chill, snows and blizzard.
Many have had frozen pipes and no water to homes for their winter comfort. Of news is that the electric power has not been
disrupted at all during all of the 12 days.
The disruption has been good for local communication, for trade and for congeniality, as more folk braved the conditions to walk
out and meet at the Co-op.
Our Co-op-car remains for the 12th day deep in a white pool of snow that disallows movement forward or back, and so we sit
and wait until the melt down takes hold.
The colored lights of the town are wonderful as they shine on through and gladden many a heart, bringing in a big welcome to the
winter .
The Co-op has enjoyed strong growth this year and is optimistically looking forward to the future in service and friendship to the
combined northwest communities.
Jane
May your 2008 be a happy memory and the beginning of 2009 be a welcome sign on your horizon of hope.